Can a Computer Be Creative?

Cross Sections / News & Features A computer program might be able to talk you into thinking it’s human, but will it ever be Shakespeare? 05.20.2016/ By Erik Sherman The so-called Turing Test, which measures the ability of a computer to convince a person communicating with it — typically though a typed question-and-answer exchange — that they are actually conversing with another human, has long been the presumed arbiter of machine intelligence. An artificial intelligence program technically cleared that hurdle in 2014, but it did so in five-minute conversations that fooled people only about 30 percent of the time — apparently with an emphasis on the “fooling,” according to critics. What makes a computer intelligent, communication or creativity? (Visual by iStock.com) The program used “clever hard-coded tricks to deceive, disorient, and distract the…